Anna Leader

Anna Justine Leader (born 1996) is a Luxembourg poet and novelist who writes in English. She has won several awards including Luxembourg's national literary contest for young authors (Concours littéraire national, jeunes auteurs de 15-25 ans), first for her novel A Several World Vienna 1912-1919 in 2014, and then for her poetry collection A Lifetime Lies: One Year's Worth of Poems in 2015.[1][2]

Biography

Born in Bellingham, Washington, on 19 October 1996, Anna Justine Leader is the daughter of the British writer and schoolteacher James Leader. After spending her first four years in the United States, she moved with her family to Luxembourg in 2000. She matriculated from the International School of Luxembourg in 2014, after which she embarked on a comparative literature course at Princeton University.[3]

When she was 16, she published her first poetry collection Squeak Like Dolls (2013) based on life in Luxembourg during the four seasons of the year. The poems had appeared in poetry journals such as Teen Ink, 'The Underground, The Ofi Press Magazine, Polyphony HS and Hemingway's Playpen. The same year she completed Tentative, her first novel, telling the story of a teenage threesome in Paris. In 2014, she won the Luxembourg literary contest with A Several World Vienna 1912-1919.[1] Her first historical novel, it is based on a period when Trotsky, Freud, Klimt and the young Anna Freud were all living close to each other in Vienna at the time of World War I. It was inspired by a history lesson during which she learnt that many famous people lived within a hundred metres of each other. She completed the manuscript of 140,000 words in just three months while taking her international baccalaureate examinations.[4]

When interviewed by Amanda Blanco at Princeton in March 2016, she explained that she had been strongly influenced by her father, publishing her first poem when she was only five. She hoped to have a career in education, following in the footsteps of her parents and grandparents.[5]

Awards

In addition to her Luxembourg literary contest awards, Leader won first prize at the Luxembourg Young Spring Contest (Concours Jeune Printemps) in 2012 with her poem "Elegy for Two" and in 2014, she won the second prize with "The Museum". In 2015, she was awarded the Guardian Stephen Spender Prize for "Weeds", her translation from the German of Jan Wagner's "Giersch".[6][1] In 2016, Leader won first prize in the Princeton University Creative Reactions Contest with an untitled poem inspired by the Arcanto String Quartet's concert of 12 November 2015.[7][8] She also won the 2017 Creative Reactions Contest with a poem titled "love songs between balconies" inspired by the mezzo-soprano Jamie Berton on 6 October 2016.[9][10]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Schmit, Sandra. "Anna Leader". Centre national de littérature Mersch. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  2. ↑ "Des heures passées à écrire seule sur un banc" (PDF) (in French). L'essentiel. 7 November 2014. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Schmit, Sandra. "James Leader" (in French). Centre national de littérature Mersch. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  4. ↑ Hamen, Samuel (30 November 2014). "Interview avec Anna Leader, lauréate du Concours littéraire national 2014" (in French). Lëtzebuerger Journal. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  5. ↑ Blanco, Amanda (9 March 2016). "Anna Leader is Princeton's international author". The Tab, Princeton. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  6. ↑ "The Stephen Spender Prize 2015 for poetry in translation in association with the Guardian: Anna Leader, Weeds". Stephen Spender Trust. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  7. ↑ "Announcing the Winners of the 2016 Creative Reactions Contest". Princeton University. 26 April 2016.
  8. ↑ "Untitled, by Anna Leader '18". issuu, Princeton University. 26 April 2016. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  9. ↑ "Announcing the winners of the 2017 Creative Reactions Contest". Princeton University. 1 May 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
  10. ↑ "love songs between balconies by Anna Leader". issuu, Princeton University. 1 May 2017. Retrieved 8 December 2017.
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